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Machine-read from the scan, so expect some errors. Lines that couldn’t be read are left out.
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PART 11 SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIALS PART IV REACTOR DEVELOPMENT . PART VI PHYSICAL RESEARCH . Appendix A Construction Progress Schedules *Transmitted as a separate document.
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Biology and Medicine TOXICOLOGICAL INFORMATION CENTER (UNCLASSIFIED) Problems of toxicity of both radioactive and nonradioactive materials have arisen repeatedly within the operations of the Atomic Energy commission and its contractors. Requests for information on items of toxicology are often made of the headquarters office. In order to obtain assistance and provide for an orderly handling of the requests, the AEC entered into a contract with the Toxicological Information Center, which was recently established in Washington, D. C., within the National Research Council. The center is sponsored by the three armed forces and the AEC. Its function is to collect and correlate information and advise only its sponsors in matters of toxicology, On June 29, the Rongelap people returned to their home island in the Marshall Islands. A s a result of a number of radiological surveys since the March 1954 detonation in the Pacific, it was determined that levels of radioactivity had decreased to the point where it was safe for the people to live on their home atoll again. Preceding their return, rehabilitation of the island was completed. This included restoration o r construction of houses and cleanup of the water supply The distribution of radioactive fallout is being studied by a stratospheric sampling program and by a worldwide system of open pots which a r e measured monthly for strontium 90 content. The soil analysis program continues as does the gummed paper program, though less weight 1s being attached to results from the latter. On the human side, marked advances in an understanding of the distribution of strontium 90 and cesium 137 in the human body and the variation from one individual to another are being made through a program of whole-skeleton analysis in the New York City area. Fallout testimony was given, May 27-June 7, in hearings before the Subcommittee on Radiation of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Systematic collection of samples of food from foreign countries was continued under the program of the Interdepartmental Committee on Nutrition for National Defense in which the AEC is participating. Data a r e being obtained on the principal sources of calcium In the typical diet of each country and the average calcium and strontium 90 content of the foods collected in
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BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE The principal conclusions of the conference were that: (1) mutation rates recorded at Harwell and at Oak Ridge were in agreement a s far a s the studies went, and (2) studies at exposures between 37.5 and 300 roentgens a r e needed to bridge the gap between the Harwell and Oak Ridge studies. A similar conference a t the Oak Ridge National Laboratory is planned f o r the summer of 1958, following the Genetics Congress in Montreal. STATUS O F TREATMENT OR IRRADIATION INJURY The possibility has recently developed that a more effective treatment can be worked out f o r persons exposed to doses of radiation in the 200- to 600-roentgen range. When it waa found that irradiated mice could be saved by the introduction of material from the spleen or bone marrow, it was first believed that simple extractives or perhaps pure chemical substances could be found that would modify the lethal course of the radiation syndrome. This idea h a s not been completely abandoned, but emphasis has shifted to transplantation of the progenitors of the cellular elements of the blood which will grow in the irradiated animal and tide him over the period when the functioning of his own bone marrow is Severe depression amounting to failure of blood formation in the bone marrow is responsible for most of the deaths which occur in animals eome 7 to 30 d a y s after exposure. Ordinarily, tissues transplanted from one individual to another of the same but not inbred strain, and even more definitely to another individual of a different strain or species, a r e rejected and destroyed by the recipient. In the animal which has been given a lethal dose of radiation, however, this immune reaction is more or less lost, so that transplants of bone marrow become a novel possibility with practical applications in man. Experimental work has shown that the irradiated animal will accept bone marrow transplants from different strains and species, but the transplant becomes increasingly less successful the greater the phylogenetic difference between the donor and the recipient. Thus, it is found that the irradiated mouse will readily accept marrow from all other mice, but the transplant of rat marrow is l e s s certain, and dog or human marrow apparently fails to take permanently. Conversely, the greater the genetic similarity between the donor and the recipient, the lower the dose of radiation needed for a successful bone marrow transplant. P r i o r to this discovery concerning the effects of radiation on transplants, it was the generally accepted belief that transplants in man a r e possible only between identical tissues. ways that the transplanted cells continue to live and function in the recipient. For example, some irradiated mice which have received r a t bone marrow have recovered from the radiation syndrome and then continue to live out their life span, but with circulating blood cells which were all definitely those of the rat; in some instances the mouse's own marrow will recover sufficiently to suppress the rat cells completely; in others the mouse will have circulating blood cells of both species. Problems in methods of securing, handling, storing, and preserving marrow a r e largely technical, and their satisfactory solution can be anticipated with a fair degree of confidence. On the other hand, it is evident from these new findings that knowledge of immunologO and the general field of tissue transplantation is deficient. in establishing the patterns to be studied and explored i n developing a practical clinical application of marrow transplantation. Idiotransplants a r e presently feasible; such a transplant These marrow transplants are not merely stopgaps, for it h a been shown ina number of Knowledge concerning the immune relationships between lower animals is of definite value
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involves the removal of some marrow from a person, temporarily storing it, and then reinfusing it i n the same person. Development of the full scope of marrow transplants into man necessarily will be slow, because the science of human tissue immunology must be further developed, and human material suitable for study is scarce. The exciting possibilities of marrow transplantation in man have already reestablished interest and research i n this field. One result that can be expected is the development of therapeutic procedures which may be useful in several types of blood diseases. Other discoveries made a s a result of current and future research in this field will be even more bone marrow transplantation, and both on-site and off-site laboratories are actively engaged i n experimental and clinical research. To this end, the Commission is supporting an estimated 90 percent of the work going on in SYMPOSIUM ON USE O F RADIOISOTOPES IN MARINE BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH The Commission, at the invitation of the Italian Committee on Nuclear Research (AEC's counterpart i n Italy), will participate in a workship symposium September 15 to 29. The conference will be held at the Naples Zoological Station, one of the foremost of its kind in the Present plana call for aeven AEC scientists actively engaged in radiobiological work with aquatic organisms and seven European scientists to give lectures, classroom demonstrations, and laboratory exercises to 20 graduate students. The topics to be covered include: (1) the use of radioisotopes in studies of the foods and feeding activities of marine animals, (2) the determination of oceanic primary productivity using carbon 14 tracer techniques, (3) tritium i n biology and hydrobiology, and (4) the movement of radiophosphorus i n aquatic communities. Equipment taken to Naples by the participating AEC scientists for the laboratory work will be left at the zoological station on indefinite loan. (End of UNCLASSIFIED section,